


don't think twice about whatever keeps you itching

by exaltioras, jesimiel



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon-Typical Worms (The Magnus Archives), Character Study, M/M, Major Character Death in later chapters, POV Jordan Kennedy, POV Second Person, The Corruption Fear Entity (The Magnus Archives), The Desolation Fear Entity (The Magnus Archives), tags to be updated as the fic progresses, the gdov tag is cus someone gets set on fire
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-18 02:33:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28984917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exaltioras/pseuds/exaltioras, https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesimiel/pseuds/jesimiel
Summary: There is a beautiful boy in your van and you think you might get fired for this. You saw him shivering in his underwear outside his burning apartment, that he set on fire, about to get arrested. It didn’t seem right to let that happen. You gave him your green windbreaker that doesn’t really suit you—you won’t be getting it back, you didn’t even check to see if he was contaminated—and frankly, you think it looks better on him. It’s too big and swamps his shaking form. You should be looking at where you’re driving, but you can’t help but notice that it looks better against his olive skin than it does yours. You’re going to let him keep it; not entirely because he might be, for lack of a better term, chock-a-block full of flesh-eating worms.“Shouldn’t you, uh, be looking where we’re going?”(i think itd be fun if the exterminator and the guy full of bugs from the bug sex episode fell in love while they search for answers about those weird worms they saw)
Relationships: Timothy Hodge/Jordan Kennedy
Comments: 5
Kudos: 16





	don't think twice about whatever keeps you itching

**Author's Note:**

> This is written as a direct sequel to my boyfriend Hal Jesimiel's fic about jordan and timothy [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28434492), it helps with the context for this work. Im at sealbf on tumblr, they're at jordankennedy on tumblr

There is a beautiful boy in your van and you think you might get fired for this. You saw him shivering in his underwear outside his burning apartment, that _he_ set on fire, about to get arrested. It didn’t seem right to let that happen. You gave him your green windbreaker that doesn’t really suit you—you won’t be getting it back, you didn’t even check to see if he was contaminated—and frankly, you think it looks better on him. It’s too big and swamps his shaking form. You should be looking at where you’re driving, but you can’t help but notice that it looks better against his olive skin than it does yours. You’re going to let him keep it; not entirely because he might be, for lack of a better term, chock-a-block full of flesh-eating worms. 

“Shouldn’t you, uh, be looking where we’re going?” 

“Right, right—yeah. Sorry.”

You don’t look at him after that. _Focus on the road, Kennedy. Do you want to fucking crash or something? Get it together, man! Come on! Poor guy’s gone through all that and you start staring at him? Dipshit._

The drive home is silent apart from the hum of your van’s engine and your gaze shifts from the mostly-empty road, to Timothy, to the starless sky illuminated only by painfully bright street lights, back to the road. How are you going to _tell_ him about all this? The connection between the bugs and disease through that horrid sickly smell—hell, _anything_ that happened to you _at all!_ You think he’ll understand, but it’s complicated. And scary. And something you haven’t been able to stop thinking about for months—it scratches and itches at your brain and makes you feel insane most days. You’ll start with the hive, you suppose, then Jane Prentiss, then the ants (you won’t be sticking on _that_ subject for long) and then… whatever the ECDC told you. Okay. Okay. It’s not so hard now you have a plan for talking about it. 

You look back to Timothy again—just to make sure he’s okay. It’s been a rough night. He’s curled up in the passenger seat, with his bony legs tucked up into his chest underneath your windbreaker, arms wrapped around himself. His head lolls to the side. He leans closer to you and—oh God. He’s asleep on your shoulder. There’s practically an audible crack as you whip your head back around to stare at the road in front of you. Oh God. Oh my God. You’re sure your knuckles are whitening under your gloves with the sheer force you’re using to grip the steering wheel, and you’re equally sure they’re starting to feel colder, because in comparison your face is hotter than the goddamn sun. Probably redder, too. 

_The sun isn’t red, idiot. Stop being weird. He's just tired._

The windbreaker droops off of Timothy’s shoulder, exposing it to the warm air of your van. Carefully, as not to wake him, you pull the collar up to the junction of his neck. What on Earth are you _doing_ , Jordan? His hair tickles your face where he's moved closer to you in his sleep.

It’s technically an hour from Brixton to your apartment in Enfield. Technically. You get there in forty minutes, and hope no cops see.

You’ve always been freakishly warm. Not, like, flammable-landlord-evil-fire-person warm, but you’ve been used as a space heater by your coworkers often enough. Point of the matter is; Timothy is still asleep on your shoulder and looks much more comfortable than he should be sleeping on who is, essentially, a stranger whose van he got in. What the hell is this guy’s deal? His once-pallid face has regained some colour after being pressed against the warmth of your shoulder. He looks peaceful, somewhat. You feel only a little bit bad waking him up with a nudge of your elbow against his chest. 

“Hey, man, we’re uh, we’re back home—at my place, I mean.” You hope to God your face still isn’t red.

He opens his eyes blearily and takes a second to note where he is, he shoots up off your shoulder. If you’re red, you feel a little less bad about it now considering how Timothy looks. His hair is messier than before, and he’s got this expression somewhere between nervous and desperation, like he’s about to go off like a bottle rocket.

You hop out of the side of the van, yanking open the door on Timothy’s side as you pass, making a beeline for the door. You shove through the frame and take the stairs two at a time, Timothy skittering behind you, until you get to your fourth-floor flat. 

Once you’re inside, it’s all you can do not to collapse where you’re standing—you manage not to, barely, dropping your keys on the kitchen counter a good three feet away from the dish they’re supposed to be in and kicking your boots off with more force than is strictly necessary. Timothy hesitates for a second before gingerly taking off your jacket and putting it up on the hook on the back of the door.

“Cleanup. Right,” you say, looking him up and down. Yeah, nothing you own’s gonna fit this guy properly. Probably best to break the news now. 

“Alright. You definitely need a shower after those worms—I’ll leave some clothes outside. Uh, I probably don’t have anything that fits, though.” 

“No, it’s—it’s fine, don’t worry about it. Thank you, for this.”

“It’s no problem.” You point him in the general direction of the bathroom and hope he can figure out your shower. It shouldn’t be too hard, you think. 

You kind of take your time in the bedroom, not wanting to seem like you’re rushing anything. Distantly, you hear the shower turn on, followed by a shocked little yelp at the cold water. You catch yourself smiling a little, and quickly school your features into blankness—no matter that there’s nobody here to see you. It’s the principle of the thing.

God knows how long you stand there being weird, because the next thing you know, the warm hum of the shower stops abruptly and the bathroom door creaks open, just a smidge.

“Hey, you said I could borrow some clothes?” Timothy’s voice is rough with exhaustion. You startle a little, clearing your throat.

“Yeah, I’ll be right there.” You pull open a drawer and rifle through it, snatching up the closest pieces of fabric that look like they _might_ approximate the right size. An old uni tee and a pair of gray sweatpants you’ve probably had since sixth form. _Jeez, I should get some new clothes._

You slide them through the crack in the ajar door, waiting for a thin hand to grab them before you walk back into the kitchen, steps quiet so as not to wake your downstairs neighbor. She’s a light sleeper.

Timothy walks out of the bathroom and into your living room drowning in the clothes you gave him. The sweatpants are fine, considering he’s only about 3 inches shorter than you, just a little bunched up at the ankle. The shirt is where there are problems.

The University of Manchester shirt is the smallest thing you own, old and ratty and only a little tight on your arms and chest, but it swallows Timothy whole. The cloth droops down off of his shoulder and the neckline is low enough for his collarbone to show. It’s too low for your liking, kind of. The issue is that you _do_ like it. His hair doesn’t look neat now, after the shower. Maybe his hair’s always a little messy and stuck up in weird places. You think it’s cute.

He doesn’t smell like sex, sweat and worms now, either. As he walks by to sit on the other side of your sofa you smell the cinnamon and vanilla body wash on him. You can’t help but think that scent suits him too. The bodywash was an impulse buy from a couple of months ago—you’d gotten so paranoid about being clean, you at least wanted to treat yourself to something a little more expensive and kind to your skin than that 5-in-1-could-probably-be-used-for-motor-oil crap. You should stock up on more, while Timothy’s here, probably. He smells sweet, and warm. Your throat feels dry.

_Are you fucking kidding me? Stop staring at him! Jesus Christ, you’re better than this, Kennedy._

You need a drink. 

“Sorry, smallest shirt I own,” You gesture to him vaguely and will your voice not to shake. “You want a drink? I’ve got Smirnoff and Bacardi, take your pick.”

“I... I think I’m good, thanks.” He waves his hand tiredly and yawns once more. You can’t blame him.

“Yeah, fair enough. Spare bedroom’s just a little down the hall from the bathroom.”

Timothy nods absently, and wanders off down the hall.

You shiver a little, involuntarily. The biting chill of your flat settles into your bones, and you can’t imagine how cold Timothy must be in just a loose t-shirt. You follow him, but take a right turn to go to your bedroom and pull out the spare blankets. They’re not very thick. You’re actually pretty sure two of them are couch covers? Either way, you grab the blankets and walk into the guest bedroom

“Mm?” Timothy hums, half asleep and bleary.

“Spare blankets, man, it’s pretty chilly.”

“Oh—” he cuts himself off with a yawn. “Um, alright then… thanks?” 

_Yeah, he's gotta be really tired if he’s confused about blankets._

You nod, and quietly leave the room. You drink until you can barely keep your eyes open and fall asleep in the clothes you wore to work, which… isn’t great, all things considered. Normally you’d shower—get the day’s grime off and all that, wash your hands until they stop itching, and _then_ sleep. But it’d been a long day, you were tired, and you could barely walk straight. You drift off quickly.

“You know, this is probably verging on unhealthy. How many times have you been here this week?”

The man in the brown suit is always there when you’re asleep. You’re not really sure why. You’re reasonably certain he isn’t _actually_ there—even if you didn’t genuinely kill him all those years ago (which you have a sinking feeling that you didn’t), he didn’t really seem like the type of guy to do any habitual dream-hopping. But, you know, who knows? You’ve misjudged character before. 

In any case, though, you’re pretty positive you’re just imagining him where he stands, loose-limbed and unconcerned, his hands shoved in his trouser pockets and his back resting against the apartment wall that looks seconds from crumbling beneath his weight, and probably already would have had this been reality.

Oh, yeah. The room’s on fire. It probably _does_ say something that you’ve generally managed to tune that bit out, lately.

The man doesn’t say anything else, just kind of peers at you with those blue, blue eyes that catch the firelight. The apartment is silent, the crackle-pop of flames and hiss of dissipating smoke utterly absent. Out of the corner of your eye, you see a coffee table finally collapse into a pile of charcoal and ash, and it doesn’t make a sound. 

This is not Jane Prentiss’ apartment. You’re not actually sure whose apartment it is, because it isn’t Arthur Nolan’s, either—though he lies in his armchair, same as always, unmoving as his skin bubbles and melts and runs like wax. It’s probably the house of someone you’ve visited on the job at some point. There’s not really anything kitschy enough in the place to be worth the memory, but you feel like you probably understand that the mind works in strange ways better than a lot of people, these days. 

You turn around and leave. You’re not really getting anything done in here—you’re wearing what you went to sleep in, and if this isn’t Jane Prentiss’ apartment then there’s probably no bugs to kill, here, anyway. The man in the brown suit watches you go, expression unreadable.

He’s outside when you leave the apartment complex, perched like a weird bird on the hood of a black car, smaller still than the little red thing you’d seen him drive. You amuse yourself for a split second by imagining him trying to fit himself inside of it. The fire rages on behind you, still completely silent.

“Why don’t you tell me?” you snap, mostly on reflex. He never really responds to any questions you ask him—you wonder if he’s just being reticent, before reasoning that he’s not actually _here_ and that it’s probably just a result of your own neuroses. Talking to yourself on such a scale is a little weird, even in dreams and even for you.

“You know, I still never got your name,” the man says loftily, leaning back on his hands. They leave smears of grease on the car’s slick-ice paint job. You’ve never really been able to reconcile his appearance with his voice—he looks like a fucked-up weatherman, you’d expected something clipped and RP, but instead it’s an octave below yours and oily-smooth, with a sort of rasping edge that only comes from sickness and a mile-thick Irish accent incongruous with the rest of him. You kind of like it, vaguely—or you would, if it was attached to someone else.

“I tell you every time you ask,” you reply, just a little tetchily—you know it’s no use, you’re just bitching at _yourself_ , but you can’t help it. “I never get yours.” The man lifts a dark eyebrow.

“Well, refresh my memory, then. It isn’t quite what it used to be.”

You grind your teeth a little. It doesn’t make a noise. Nothing does, except your speech and his—your footsteps, your breathing, the collapsing building behind you. He taps his nails on the hood of the car and you think your mind is filling in the clicking noises it should make, which is odd, since this is _all_ in your mind in the first place. You abandon that train of thought in favor of picking at a bit of lint on the hem of your shirt. It’s one of your old jerseys, from back when you played rugby. God _damn_ , that was a long time ago.

The man in the brown suit just looks at you. That’s almost all he ever does—look at you, and stalk your dreams, and say annoying things. You glare back. “Can we just get on with it?”

The man shrugs and rolls his eyes, unfolding his long legs from the car’s hood. Back to the grindstone, he thinks, and you wonder how you knew he thought that, and then you remember— _oh yeah, I’m dreaming._ For some reason, you always end up forgetting.

He stalks up to you, hands still in his pockets. “Are you ready?” he asks, like he always does.

“As much as I’ll ever be,” you answer, like you always do. The man smiles. It isn’t a greasy, ingratiating thing, like it sometimes is—just a small, fleeting upturning of the mouth. He extracts a hand from his pocket and reaches out to you, fitting the flat of his hand over the hollow of your throat. You swallow, once, feeling your Adam’s apple press against his palm.

The sweatpants you wore to bed don’t actually have their own pockets in the real world, but they do here. The boxy form of your silver Zippo lighter jostles around in the left one, but you don’t pull it out, yet. You used to go for it immediately, and sometimes still do, if you’re not feeling particularly patient, but—you like to drag it out, every once in a while. Enjoy the moment. You’re in control, here. 

The man always looks you in the eyes when you do this. It stopped being unnerving a long time ago, but you still don’t really get why. It’d be one thing if it were actually _him,_ but since it isn’t, you can’t help but wonder if it’s just some weird reflection of your own thoughts. Then again, though, that’s all dreams are, in the end. His right hand presses insistently on your throat, coming just short of cutting off your air supply, and his other hand comes up to cradle the back of your head, fingers threading through your hair. Gently, gently. Always so warm. You tilt your head farther back, looking down your nose and up at him simultaneously, eyes half-lidded from the effort of keeping eye contact. 

This had been far more violent, the first few go-arounds. A lot of spit-out words and hair-pulling and trading harried blows. Now, though, you think both of you have made your peace with the rigamarole, just going through the motions. After nearly every night for three years, it’s become as painless as possible for you, _slightly_ less painful for him. At least he weathers it gracefully. 

He swipes his thumb over your throat and presses it softly to the bottom of your chin, pushing it up further. You go willingly, head hanging, held up only by his other hand still tangled in your hair. He’s looming over you, backlit by the still-flaming, still-crumbling apartment complex behind him, casting his sharp features into shadow. A bizarre parody of a dance, maybe, or it would be if either of you saw fit to move. His eyes still shine. 

“What do you want, Jordan?” 

It’s the first and only time he’s ever addressed you by name. You feel limp, boneless, at ease. You don’t pick your head up to face him again—you know he’ll hear you anyway. 

“I dunno.”

His long, lean body curves over yours as he leans down close, and your noses almost brush. His touch burns sweetly against your collarbone—you never feel anything inside the apartment, even on the occasions when you stay until the flames start to lick up around your knees, but the fever-heat of his skin always makes your veins sing, in pain or in pleasure.

“You have a choice,” the man continues, never taking his eyes off yours. The palm of his hand moves from the center to the side of your throat, leaving a trail of warmed skin in its wake. You shudder, hand moving towards the lighter in your pocket. You’re in control, here.

“And what’s that?”

He gently tilts your head to the side, steadying you. You keep your eyes closed, preferring instead to _feel_ the way he drops one hand to the small of your back, drawing you close to him until you can feel his heat in one long line from your stomach to your shoulders. Your skin prickles pleasantly and you feel like you’re bubbling over, but you keep your face impassive.

“You become the destruction,” the man says, his nose inches from your cheek. “Let it consume you, boil you, char you from the inside. Gain power, gain control. Channel the fire, trade your flesh for wax. Vile, if you want to know what I think, but _you’re_ made for it.”

You let your eyes narrow, a bit, even though he probably can’t see it. “What’s the other option?”

The man drops a kiss to the apple of your cheek in response, and you suck in a startled breath, hands flying up to clutch at his shoulders reflexively. It’s _hot,_ third-degree, like a whole handful of lit cigarette ends, and for every tick on the pain meter, there’s three on whatever scale measures how _good_ it feels—like waves of _something_ emanating from the origin point, warming your entire body like a coal-fire’s been stoked in your lungs. You feel the gentle press of his teeth against your skin as he kisses you again, then in the middle of your cheek, then on the corner of your mouth. 

“Give yourself to us. The Hive’s affection is boundless—we will care for you, more deeply than any human ever could. You will belong. You will have a family. We will keep you safe. Let us love you, in our entirety,” he finishes.

“Tough call,” you say, breath hitching, hands tightening on his jacket. He doesn’t drop you. You leave one arm around his shoulders as the other falls to your side, slipping into your impossible pocket. 

“You’ve decided,” the man says quietly, slightly muffled against the side of your face. You pull back, just a little, to look him in the eye, bringing your free hand around to rest against his jaw as you do.

“Sorry,” you say. You don’t really mean it. “It won’t hurt.” You don’t mean that either.

You flick the lighter on and press it to his shirt front before he can respond. He hisses in sudden pain, but he still doesn’t let you go. You feel the flames, this time, and relish the way your skin blackens and cracks. It goes on for a long, long time, and his eyes never leave yours.

You wake up drenched in sweat that makes you shiver as it cools. Damn, is your apartment cold.

**Author's Note:**

> The working title for this fic was "there is a beautiful boy full of worms who steals your weed out of the glove compartment of your van" and its very important you all know this.


End file.
